


Breaking News: You'll Never Believe Who This Area Lawyer Married!

by 94BottlesOfSnapple



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [3]
Category: Daredevil (Comics)
Genre: Crack Relationships, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Humor, Love Potion/Spell, M/M, Mutual Pining, kind of?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2020-06-27 07:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19786123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple
Summary: In a universe where the author missed her target with the Stereotypical Love Spell by a handful of inches, Stilt-Man falls instantly and madly in love with Foggy Nelson. How's a guy to get out of a date with a D-list supervillain? By pretending to be married to Daredevil, of course!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet can also be found on Tumblr [here](https://pomegranate-belle.tumblr.com/post/184767881940/you-want-a-crackship-ill-give-you-a-crackship)
> 
> I really want to do more with this idea, but it's not a priority so who knows when/if it'll get updated with more. Sorry!

“You tried to kill me one time!” Foggy exclaims, because that seems like a much safer route to go than to address this directly. “You threw me out a _window_!”

“That was before I fell in love with you!” implores — that’s right — the god damn Stilt-Man.

Because this is Foggy Nelson’s life. Stilt-Man showing up at his home — his _home_ — in plainclothes with a bouquet of flowers he probably stole anyway ( _so_ not romantic) and some delusional insistence that they’re soulmates.

“And that makes it _ok_?” Foggy demands. “Go away! Go to jail! I can and will sic Daredevil on you!”

After he stops laughing, probably. Matt’s an asshole like that.

“I would fight Daredevil for your love!” Stilt-Man replies doggedly.

“No one’s asking you to! I’m already married!”

He’s also divorced but that’s semantics in a situation like this. The look of despair that little white lie prompts almost makes Foggy feel bad. Almost.

“To who?”

And Foggy’s brain is too busy being annoyingly prescriptivist — _it’s to whom, actually_ — to filter what comes out of his mouth next.

“To Daredevil, obviously.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Matt.”

Matt, who is an asshole of the highest order, is still laughing five minutes after Foggy explains the Stilt-Man Debacle. He’s literally wheezing for air, tears streaming down his damnably beautiful face. He even slaps his own knee once or twice like a grandpa who heard a good joke.

But this is not a joke, and as much as Foggy thinks Matt probably needs more laughter in his life he is not thrilled that it’s at his expense.

“ _Matt_!”

“He,” Matt gasps out, “he brought you flowers! _Flowers_! He’s gonna duel me for your love! When’s the, the wedding, Fogs?”

“It already happened!” Foggy shouts without any further explanation because he’s annoyed and he wants Matt to shut up.

Shut up he does — the laughter stops immediately. Matt’s left still bent over but angling his face up towards Foggy, glasses slipping down his nose and mouth hanging open. Gobsmacked, as Nana Nelson would say.

“ _What_?” Matt demands, straightening up, and his tone is so radically altered, so low and snarling, that it makes Foggy jump. “You— you _stupid_ — How could— When I—”

He doesn’t continue, doesn’t seem to know what to say — just grabs Foggy by the shoulders and shakes him a little.

“Now that I’ve got your attention,” Foggy says, rolling his eyes and shoving Matt’s grip away. “I _told_ him I.” And suddenly it’s a lot harder to get out; Foggy has to swallow twice before he can continue. “I told him I was already married to. To, uh, Daredevil.”

And even having known Matt for so long, Foggy’s still unable to decipher the meaning behind the four or five different expressions his face shifts through then. Each one is completely unfamiliar, a brand new Matt Murdock Face.

“To _me_?” he asks, and his voice cracks like a teenager’s.

“No, not to you,” replies Foggy, very reasonably. “Matt Murdock isn’t Daredevil, remember? At least not as far as anybody knows anymore.”

Matt nods absently, runs his tongue over his teeth.

“Right,” he murmurs. “Right.”

There’s a long, long silence. As always, Foggy breaks it first.

“Look are you going to help me or not?” he sighs. “I don’t want Stilt-Man calling my bluff like I’m a girl at a bar who gave some creep a fake number.”

Matt goes very, very still. In general, Foggy’s learned, that’s a bad sign. It usually only happens when Matt is trying very hard not to feel the feelings he is feeling. Or when he’s about to backflip out a window to avoid an awkward situation. Or both. In this case, Foggy thinks, it’s probably because he doesn’t know how to articulate that he doesn’t want his duty as Foggy’s best friend to interfere with his latest fling — whoever she is.

“Look, I’m not asking you to stop hooking up with people or anything,” Foggy promises. “Just keep it to the Matt Murdock side of things. And maybe, I don’t know, confirm my story the next time you’re kicking Stilt-Man’s teeth in. I’m not asking you to kiss me in front of him or anything, Matt, I promise.”

A quiet, tea-kettle-esque noise escapes past Matt’s clenched teeth. This is not going well, Foggy thinks as calmly as he can. He’s going to have to go in front of a judge and explain why he needs a restraining order no one can actually enforce against a supervillain. He’s going to have to lock himself in his house and practice law over a webcam. He’s going to have to move back to San Francisco, all because he was flustered enough at being propositioned by a man so incompetent it was an insult to other supervillains to put them in the same category that he let his mouth run away with him. He’s still carefully not examining why Daredevil’s name was the first to come to mind for a fake spouse. It’s obvious it’s because he knew if Stilt-Man went off the rails and tried to attack his supposed love rival, Matt would easily be able to defend himself. There is no other possible reason. Anyway, even if there were one, planning for ways to keep Stilt-Man away from himself without Matt’s help is a lot more important than ridiculous introspection that would only end in tears.

“—do it.”

Foggy blinks.

“What?”

“I’ll do it,” Matt repeats tightly in a way that indicates that, actually, he’d rather _not_ do it.

“You don’t have to, Matt, if you... If it makes you uncomf—”

“I already said I would, Fogs.”

Which, yes, he did. And Matt’s too stubborn to back down even if Foggy gives him an out now, or points out how unhappy he seems about agreeing. So, he does the only thing he can.

“Thanks, Matty. I owe you one.”

“No problem, buddy.”

Foggy’s pretty sure there are a _lot_ of problems with this entire situation, but he also knows when to keep his big mouth shut.

* * *

On the days when he chooses to be honest with himself — few and far between — Matt Murdock knows he’s not a great man. Most of the time he’s probably not even a good one. But even at his lowest he can’t imagine thinking he deserves this. To be so close to what he wants, and yet so, so far away. But like hell he’s going to sit around and let Stilt-Man harass Foggy. Even if Matt didn’t— feel the way he feels. About Foggy. That would still be basic decency, still be protecting a friend and a citizen of Hell’s Kitchen. He just really, really doesn’t want to do it like this. Doesn’t want to let his brain get used to the idea of Foggy being his. Because he’s not, and Matt’s spent a long, long time resigning himself to that for the sake of their friendship. The fact that he’s now envious of Wilbur fucking Day for having the stones to confess to Foggy when he can’t is just extra salt in the wound.

He’ll do it though. Whatever Foggy needs. Matt’s a sucker like that. He just, you know, maybe needs a few days to deal with Foggy mentioning kissing without even a single warning for Matt’s poor bruised heart.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I genuinely have no idea what's going on with this, it's just pure ridiculous crack at this point.

Tracking down Stilt-Man isn’t hard for Matt. Usually this would be because the asshole stomps down the street in fifty-foot metal legs. At the moment it’s because he’s standing in the middle of DeWitte Clinton Park like a jackass, caterwauling challenges to Daredevil for Foggy’s hand in marriage.

First of all, Foggy is not an Elizabethan damsel; it’s his choice who he marries, and he has already (at least for the purposes of this ruse) chosen Matt, dammit. Second of all, it’s a fucking park. A place for the community. Only a self-absorbed jerk would try and start a brawl where kids could potentially be put in danger. It’s only polite to keep your superpowered blood feuds away from children and civilians. Even fucking Leap-Frog knows that, but apparently Wilbur Day is too high on whatever love potion he’s been snorting to care about it.

That’s ok, though. Matt’s definitely up for knocking some teeth— er. _Sense_. Yes, _knocking some sense into him_.

That is what Matt meant.

Definitely.

On the bright side, the park has been evacuated, so Matt doesn’t have to split his attention between taking down Stilt-Man and keeping bystanders safe. He doesn’t bother to announce himself, and just leaps right into fighting. And despite Stilt-Man’s complete lack of focus or sense, it is actually a difficult battle. More than that, something is… Off.

Despite Foggy’s teasing on the matter, Matt can’t actually smell magic. But. It is generally an energy and so he can generally sense it – in the same way he might sense radiation or heat. It’s sort of a tactile, feeling… Thing. And there’s absolutely something going on with Wilbur Day. It’s not like the common kinds of magic Matt’s sensed before when crime-fighting, but he’s also never encountered a love spell so he’s got no basis for comparison.

Or does he?

Matt’s brows furrow under his mask as he thinks. There’s definitely a sort of, a sort of déjà vu he’d getting, the longer he takes in the weird energy radiating off Stilt-Man.

And then it comes to him.

The last time he fought Stilt-Man – not three days ago, a little further uptown than Matt usually travelled while in the mask. It hadn’t been a steady glow of magic then, though. It’d been a bolt that passed by so quickly Matt had almost forgotten about it, too focused on the opponent in front of him. There hadn’t been any sort of impact from it, not even a grunt of pain, and he’d assumed it hadn’t hit anyone. But Matt wonders now if it did actually make contact with Stilt-Man, causing… Well, whatever the hell this is.

But even then – and Matt’s not really well-versed in love spells except from fiction, thank goodness – it seems kind of weird that something like that would make Stilt-Man fixate on Foggy in particular. Foggy hadn’t been anywhere near that fight, so it couldn’t have been something like him being the first person Stilt-Man saw after being hit with the spell.

And yet. It is magic, after all. Maybe Matt’s giving it too much credit in the rationality department. He’s also giving it too much of his attention, he realizes when he only narrowly dodges a metal fist. Fight first, magical conundrums later.

Wilbur Day might have a sturdy metal robot suit, but he’s got a glass jaw and that’s all Matt ever needs to win.

“You’re gonna leave _my husband_ the hell alone,” he snarls, and means the possessive a genuinely worrying amount.

He does have to do some creative zip-line work to prevent the Stilt-Man suit from causing too much collateral damage to the park once he’s yanked its pilot out, but that’s the kind of high-flying quick thinking that Daredevil’s all about.

He’s less suited for handling the suggestive congratulations on his nuptials offered by the first set of cops on the scene. Part of it is sheer awkward embarrassment, part of it is the desperate desire for the congratulations to be warranted, and part of it is his usual flare of generic guilt. Pretending he doesn’t hear them over Stilt-Man’s annoying wails of devotion to Foggy, Matt makes his escape.

* * *

“Gotta find a new headline,” J Jonah Jameson grumbles under his breath, flipping through the notes his reporters had given him about an hour previous. “Garbage. Garbage. Not enough oomph. Garbage.”

It’s perfect. It’s Peter’s shot. He’s going to get himself a promotion and also clean up Spider-Man’s reputation. It’ll be great.

“You know, Mr. Jameson,” he says leadingly, sidling up to Jameson’s desk, “Spider-Man saved a bus full of kids from a giant robot this morning—”

“Forget Spider-Man!” Jameson shouts for literally the first and last time in his entire life, slapping down a sheaf of notes. “Daredevil’s _gay_! And _married_! I want everyone we’ve got on this! Who’s the husband, what does he do, when did they get married? And I want it out before anyone else gets wind of it and steals our scoop!”

The entire office erupts into a whirlwind of activity.

“Ah, jeez, Double-D,” Peter mutters under his breath, slumping against the wall. “What’d you go and do this time?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The crack fic has a moment of seriousness(?), mostly because I couldn't resist bringing in More Villains.
> 
> Also!! This story now has art!! How wild is that! Check it out [here](https://artbymintcookies.tumblr.com/post/618342334453760000/since-it-seems-like-its-the-appropriate-time-to)

Not two days from very determinedly agreeing to pretend to be Foggy’s husband, Matt — or, rather, Daredevil — tumbles through the window of Foggy’s study to announce that he’s stopped Stilt-Man. Foggy’s grown very used to Matt tumbling through windows for various reasons over the years, and even if Matt ought to have stopped treating his body like it’s still twenty-five, the wild grin on his face is one that’s immune to scolding: an eager, boyish, ‘pat my head, I did so good’ expression. It’s utterly charming even now, damn him.

“If you’re expecting awe over the defeat of Stilt-Man, I think you’re gonna be pretty disappointed, Matty,” Foggy tells him, if only to cover whatever godawful embarrassing things his heart is doing.

In retaliation, Matt pouts. They are grown-ass men — have in fact been grown-ass men for the last couple decades now — and yet the expression is just as cute as it was at nineteen. There’s no use dwelling on it, Foggy reminds himself, and returns to penning out notes on their latest case. Nothing’s happened yet and nothing ever will. Matt agreed to the ruse because he’s a good friend and thinks everything is his responsibility.

“Don’t you at least want to know what I found out?” Matt asks, leaning all over Foggy’s desk.

Like a damn cat, Foggy thinks fondly. A really needy, attention-hungry ginger tabby. He pokes the capped end of his pen against Matt’s forehead so he’ll stop casting shadows on Foggy’s writing space.

“Sure, I’ll bite. What did you discover?”

“Well, turns out Wilbur Day wasn’t just taken in by your many charms,” Matt says. “There was some sort of... Something coming off him. Felt like magic. Like someone hit him with a spell.”

“And the origins of this magic spell are...?” presses Foggy.

“Uh, well...”

Matt’s sheepish face says it all. He’s got no clue.

Still, according to Matt, their problems are solved, with the exception of the army of reporters coming to bang down Foggy’s door for an exclusive. Papparazzos haranguing him for details about his imaginary marriage is at least preferable to them haranguing him about whether Matt is Daredevil, though. Foggy will live. The hype will die down eventually. He can’t imagine he, boring as he is, will hold the press’s attention for too long. He’ll just give himself a few days to work from home. Their new secretary can hand off anything Foggy truly needs to Matt, who doesn’t have to worry about reporters on the front lawn when he can leap rooftops on a single bound.

It’ll be just fine.

* * *

Foggy really needs to learn to stop jinxing himself, he comes to realize three days later.

The lawn full of reporters is annoying, but the real trouble starts mid-morning. Catching a lot of movement from the corner of his eye, Foggy glances out his study window.

Below, the crowd parts, but not for anyone reasonable like Matt or Luke Cage or, Foggy doesn’t know, Captain America or somebody. No. They part for a cadre of supervillains who appear to be bickering like children. Among them are Bullseye and Ikari, both of whom Foggy had been reasonably sure were, y’know, deceased. _Death is an illusion indeed_ , he thinks to himself.

The reporters scatter to a safe distance as the supervillains make their disjointed approach up the walkway. From the window of his study, he begins to make out the rest of the rag-tag group. Doc Ock is there, along with half of the Sinister Six. Foggy can just barely make out breathy, unappealing calls of his name through the glass of the window. A couple of the villains look like they might have once been carrying flowers; after all their tussling, only a few sad petals and stems remain.

“I’m pretty sure this is what hell’s like,” Foggy says blankly, then takes another sip of his coffee.

Well, what else can he really do? He’s not the one with all the abs and superpowers and martial arts training. Speaking of which, isn’t it high time the Devil made his appearance? Hell, Foggy would take Spidey at this point — and it’d be only fair, since:

A) he’d badgered Foggy and Matt into a photo to sell to the Bugle for this whole debacle, and

B) half these lunatics are his rogue’s gallery anyway.

Actually, come to think of it...

Matt had mentioned a Spidey team-up the other day, hadn’t he? Adding that to the fact that he’d fought Stilt-Man right before the guy got a pie full of ‘love and respect Foggy Nelson’ filling to the kisser and...? A pattern begins to emerge.

What it means, he’s got no clue, but something about fighting Matt is making villains go bonkers. More bonkers than normal, in any case.

Foggy continues to watch the spectacle below until his coffee is gone. Bullseye ping-ponging random crap from his pockets off the others’ heads, Doc Ock picking up Electro and Mysterio with his robot arms to smash them together. Then, shaking his head, Foggy moves to the kitchen to rinse out his mug like the responsible dish-doing person he’s trying to be. There’s a window in the kitchen too, although with a slightly less cinematic angle, so he’s not missing much.

As Foggy dries the mug and sets it on the counter, he turns more focus outside again.

His brows furrow. Something’s off about the gaggle of supervillains tussling on his doorstep. Well, more off. One, two, three...

Ikari is missing from the shuffle.

A pair of strong arms loop around Foggy’s waist from behind, and his heart stops. While Foggy’s had his fair share of near-deadly encounters with supervillains over the years, it’s true that Ikari scares him more than most. Some of it is that he’s got Matt’s powers. Most of it is tied up in that horrible night, sitting at a table with the Kingpin and praying Matt was alive. And, frankly, a little bit of it is just his baseline inherent mistrust of people who dress up in bizarre costumes — good or bad, there’s always Something Up with them that’s bound to ruin Foggy’s day.

“Miss me?” Ikari asks.

Foggy has a moment to be glad the lunatic is still wearing his mask, because he’s got his face pressed right up against the nape of Foggy’s neck. While Foggy isn’t overly fond of pointy masks digging into his skin, he much prefers it to having Ikari breathe all over him like a panting dog.

“Not particularly, no. Didn’t you die?”

But before Ikari can answer, there’s a loud thump from the other room. Ikari whips around, tugging Foggy with him. Thankfully, the new intruder is Daredevil. Foggy’s pretty sure if it was Doc Ock or, god forbid, Bullseye, he might’ve started screaming and never stopped.

“Let go of him,” Matt growls, taking a threatening step through the kitchen doorway. “Now.”

“And why should I surrender him to you?” Ikari mocks, tightening his hold around Foggy’s waist. “You are the lesser model, after all.”

Foggy can see Matt flinch at that and winces. But Matt’s used to taking hits where it hurts, enough so that he pulls himself together in seconds and changes tactics.

“If you really love him, you wouldn’t want him to get hurt,” Matt coaxes. “You and I are going to fight, we both know that — do you really want Foggy caught in the crossfire?”

There’s a heavy silence as Ikari considers these words.

“Fair enough,” he agrees.

With way more grace than Foggy would expect, he’s spun and twirled to a position of relative safety behind Ikari.

And then Ikari pulls out the kamas hooked on his sash. The blades gleam in the sunlight streaming through the window. They look sharp.

“W-wait!”

Foggy grabs Ikari by the arm because he’s genuinely, just, completely suicidal now apparently, but mostly because Matt’s last fight with this guy did a pretty horrific number on him and Foggy doesn’t ever want to see that again. If he can help, if he can be a distraction, anything — he’s going to do it.

“Wait,” he repeats. “I. I do want you more. You don’t need to finish him off, I’ve made my choice.”

Slowly, Ikari lowers his weapons, even returns one to his sash, and finally, blessedly, takes his attention off Matt. He turns to face Foggy instead.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Ikari says with a quiet laugh, his gloved thumb stroking Foggy’s lower lip. “You know you can’t lie to me.”

A chill shoots down Foggy’s spine. Sure, Ikari thinks he’s in love, but who‘s to say that’ll stop him from lashing out? The guy’s an assassin after all. But Foggy’s in the corner of the kitchen, there’s nowhere to retreat to, and all he’s got is—

His fingers close around the broom propped in the corner, directly behind him. He can’t make himself move it, because he knows that unlike Matt, Ikari can see. Sure he’d probably just think it was funny, but Foggy doesn’t want to take chances.

Out of the corner of Foggy’s eye, he can see Matt beginning to move. He lifts one of his billy clubs to take a swing at Ikari’s unguarded back and—

Within the space of a breath, Ikari twists to grab Matt by the wrist.

“Nice try. You’ll have to—”

Which is about the moment Foggy whacks him with the broom handle. It doesn’t really do much damage, but it’s distraction enough that Matt can make quick work of knocking Ikari out. Foggy, for one, thinks the speed with which he darts to Matt’s side afterwards is perfectly reasonable. He needs something to anchor himself amidst the surreal day he’s having, so he maybe also latches on to Matt’s red-clad forearm.

“Are you ok, Foggy?” asks Matt, concern marring what little of his face Foggy can see.

Ok is kind of a relative term when it comes to their zany lives, but Foggy’s unhurt and he tells Matt so.

“What about the others?” Foggy thinks to ask at last, numbly.

“Others?”

“The, there were other supervillains, out...” Foggy gestures vaguely towards the door and is so rattled that he almost forgets to narrate it.

“Right, them,” says Matt. “Bagged them on the way in. I don’t think they even noticed me, which is frankly insulting.”

Matt’s wry humor startles a sharp laugh from Foggy’s mouth. Still, it’s not until Ikari is hauled away by the cops that Foggy can release his death grip on Matt’s arm.

“I don’t mean to sound like I’m blaming you for all this, but I’m definitely blaming you,” he says, trying hard for a joking tone and utterly failing when his voice shakes.

But, a small voice at the back of his head says, maybe that’s wrong. After all, if it were really Matt’s fault somehow, Foggy would’ve expected the lovelorn villains to be trailing after him instead. In which case, Foggy wonders, is it his own fault this is happening? Has he too somehow manifested superpowers and is magically mind-whammying people to be in love with him?

No, that’s stupid. If Foggy knows anything from years of up-close-and-personal contact with superpeople, it’s that powers always need a catalyst. For Matt it was the radioactive chemicals, for inhumans it’s terrigen, for mutants it’s some sort of danger or stress response. Experimentation by mad scientist, alien laser beams, spider bite, you name it. It’s always down to a cause.

The weirdest thing that had happened to Foggy prior to villains randomly declaring undying love for him was being best friends with an idiot in red spandex. Matt is the source of ninety-nine percent of the weirdness in Foggy’s life.

“Foggy?”

Foggy snaps out of his thoughts, shaking his head a little.

“Yeah, Matt?”

“Just, I... I’ll fix this,” he tells Foggy earnestly, sweet and very sure of himself in the way that’s always made people fall in love with him. “I promise.”

Ah, jeez. What a sap. What’s Foggy supposed to do with this guy? Well, whatever he’s supposed to do, what he _does_ is tug Matt into a fierce hug. They probably both need one at this point.

“Yeah, buddy. I know you will. I trust you.”


End file.
